Microsoft Announces Its First Fully Self-Developed Image-Generating AI, Independent of OpenAI

Metaverse Planet

October 14, 2025

Microsoft has announced its first in-house developed text-to-image AI tool. The tool, named “MAI-Image-1,” entered the popular performance test LMArena with a high score. So, what does MAI-Image-1 offer?

A significant move has come from the US-based technology giant, Microsoft. The company has announced its new AI tool, MAI-Image-1, which it developed entirely in-house. This AI, which focuses on generating images from text, also yielded impressive results in performance tests. Let’s take a closer look at Microsoft’s new AI tool.

Microsoft primarily relies on OpenAI in the AI sector. After all, Microsoft is one of OpenAI’s largest investors. However, this situation has started to change recently. The company had previously announced its first self-developed AI model shortly before this. The latest developments are a clear indication that Microsoft is beginning to distance itself from OpenAI.

So, what does MAI-Image-1 offer?

Microsoft’s new AI tool has made a very ambitious entry into the market. According to the company’s statement, MAI-Image-1 yields “excellent” results in photorealistic images such as lightning, landscapes, and more. It can also operate much faster than its competitors. Microsoft states that it collaborated with professionals to ensure MAI-Image-1 can provide the most authentic results possible.

MAI-Image-1 managed to score 1096 points on LMArena, an AI comparison platform where people compare images obtained from different tools and vote for the best one. This placed Microsoft’s new AI tool in 9th place on LMArena. It is important not to overlook this detail: MAI-Image-1 is still in its early stage.

According to LMArena, the best text-to-image AIs are:

Model	Score
hunyuan-image-3.0	1161
gemini-2.5-flash-image-preview (nano-banana)	1154
imagen-4.0-ultra-generate-preview-06-06	1145
seedream-4-2k	1144
seedream-4-high-res-fal	1134
imagen-4.0-generate-preview-06-06	1131
gpt-image-1	1123
seedream-4-fal	1118
mai-image-1	1096
seedream-3	1089

So, what does MAI-Image-1 offer?

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